The Daughter
by The One Eyed Witch
Summary: Jack O'Neill finds out that he may have another dead child. Crossover w/ Stargate. WIP.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy or Stargate.

Chapter 1

They were watching Star Wars. Again. Of course Jack was only protesting on principle. He was too glad to have them all here. The last mission had been hellish. Murphy had really worked his magic on PX6-575. The mission should have been a simple one. 575 had some old temple that Daniel had been drooling over for months. There hadn't been any sign of technology more advanced than the wheel, and there hadn't been any natives, or even large life forms. SG-7 had found the planet back in February and apart from the temple they had decided that there was nothing of interest on the planet. So after SG-1 had completed a string of dangerous and highly stressful missions, General Hammond had decided that they deserved an easy mission.

Of course it hadn't quite worked out like that. Daniel had stumbled across some very complicated machinery disguised in the ruins. And because Murphy was Murphy, that the machinery had had a self destruct trigger, that Daniel, being Daniel, had managed to activate. Fortunately by the time it had gone off Daniel had been far enough away, to avoid being burned up in the resulting explosion. He did however end up buried under a large amount of rock. It only got worse from there. By the time they had dug out Daniel, Jaffa had come through the gate, though nobody could quite understand what drew them to the planet, since by all signs, there had been no Gouuld presence on the planet for hundreds of years.

They had barely escaped with their lives, and now almost a week and a half later Daniel had finally been cleared to leave the infirmary, though it would be weeks before he was cleared for active duty. To celebrate Jack had wanted to go to O'Mailey's but Carter had nixed the idea. She had pointed out that Daniel was still on all sorts of painkillers, Jack had a cast on his left arm and numerous cracked ribs, and she herself was black and blue from a brief fist fight with a Jaffa. Even Teal'c had been feeling off, since Junior had spent the last week and a half repairing the damage done to the Big Guy's body by a staff blast.

So they had ended up at Jack's place, intending to relax, watch movies, and eat Pizza. Of course the move ended up being Teal'c's favorite, but Jack was too happy with the fact that they were all alive (if a little worse for wear) to worry about little things like watching a movie for the fiftieth time.

He heard the doorbell ring, and got up. "Don't bother." He told Carter who was in control of the remote and had been in the middle of reaching up to pause the movie. "I'll be right back. It's probably just the pizza." He then moved to the kitchen to grab the money he kept in the kitchen drawer. Mentally doing the math, he pulled out seventy five dollars, and headed for the door. It was unlikely that they would eat all four large pizzas tonight, but at least he could send some food home with Daniel and Carter, so that tomorrow at lunch all he had to do was call them up and tell them, to get away from the translation/calculation, heat up the pizza and eat. For some reason the really intelligent ones often got themselves nominated for the Darwin Awards for forgetting the simplest things, like eating and sleeping.

He pulled the door open and was about to hand the cash to the person standing on the other side when he realized that it wasn't the usual Pizza delivery boy. It was in fact a woman with a colorful scarf tied around her head, and wearing baggy clothes that were far too warm for warm for a nice 

afternoon in May. Of course anything would have been baggy on this woman. She was skeletally thin. Seriously. Jack was fairly sure that she could earn a living working as a living skeleton in a Med School, or maybe at some Science museum. Even as he was stuffing the Pizza money into his sweatshirt pocket, Jack was berating the society that produced so many girls and women that were so unhappy with their body, that they were willing to starve themselves to this point. Days like this he was really glad that Cassie's mother was a very self assured doctor. Janet would never let her daughter sink to this.

"Can I help you?" he smiled at the woman, trying to be friendly. No matter what he thought about her idea of beauty, his mother had raised him to always be polite to women.

"Hello, Jack" the woman on the porch said quietly. Then seeing the obvious confusion in his eyes she smiled.

It was the smile that gave her away but Jack still had to stare into her eyes to make sure that he had the right woman. Her smile and her eyes had been the only thing that hadn't changed.

"Ceci?" he asked, disbelief coloring his voice. When the woman nodded, Jack blurted out "What the heck happened to you?" Then realizing how rude that sounded he hurried to correct himself "I mean you look great but you've really…"

"It's okay Jack." She interrupted him before he had a chance to dig his hole in any deeper. "I know what I look like. Don't worry about it." She took a deep breath. "But I need to talk to you. It's important."

"Of course" he nodded. He may not have seen Cecilia in over fifteen years, but he wasn't about to turn her away without at least listening to her. Especially not when she looked like she was about to cry. "Would you like to come in? Something to eat or drink?" he offered as he stood aside to let her enter.

"I would like some water. But I think I'd rather sit out here. We need to have this conversation in private." She gestured towards the inside of his house where he could hear the movie playing and his teammates talking.

"Of course. Sit down" he led her over to the patio chair that he had bought a while ago. Once she was seated, he pulled another chair to stand right across from her and then continued "I'll be right back. I'll just get you some water."

Inside he took a few deep breaths to compose himself. He knew of course that people changed but this was ridiculous. The Cecilia Johnson he remembered was a curvy sexy brunette, with a wicked sense of humor and the most unusually colored eyes he had ever seen. That at least hadn't changed. Her eyes were still a beautiful, almost unreal shade of green, with specks of yellow in them.

After a few deep breaths, he felt ready to face Ceci again. He quickly filled a glass with water and then entered the living room.

"That wasn't the Pizza" he explained to the three curious sets of eyes that were directed at him. Well, two pairs. Teal'c looked as stoic as ever. "It's an old friend of mine. We'll be outside catching up, so you guys can just watch the movie without me."

They fortunately got the unspoken message, that he needed some privacy, and obediently turned back to the TV, though Daniel did manage to shoot him a look that said 'you're going to tell me everything later.'

Taking the water Jack headed back outside to his unexpected visitor as he tried to figure out what she could be here to talk about. He nearly walked into the door as he realized why she would be here. The realization caused him to sit down on the chair he kept in his foyer. It couldn't be.

But it couldn't be anything else either. They hadn't had much in common except the couple of nights they had spent together, what sixteen, no almost seventeen years ago. They had been young, stupid, and AIDS and other STI just hadn't occurred to them. He couldn't remember how careful they had been about protection, but he supposed that something like AIDS would certainly explain why Cecilia had looked so wasted away. Real panic gripped him for a few seconds as he wondered if he could be sick too. And worse could he have passed it on to Sara? But then he remembered the numerous blood test that the Doc ran on an almost weekly basis. If he had even a slightly abnormal reaction to any test that Janet ran, she would have locked him up in the infirmary until she figured out the cause. It wasn't like he was one of those people who could incubate a disease for years before anyone caught on, because he only saw his doctor once a year, at his annual physical.

He breathed a sight of relief, and then prepared himself mentally. Cecilia was probably here to tell him that there was a chance that he had been infected, and it wouldn't be an easy thing for her to say. Remembering his own fear just minutes ago, he figured she would need all the support she could get. The very least he could do for her was offer a willing ear, assure her that he hadn't been affected and maybe even visit her at the hospital. It had been a long time since they last saw each other, but he knew that times like these people needed all the friends they could get.

Finally, he got out of the house and sat down in the chair across from Ceci. He handed her the glass of water, and silently thanked her for not asking what had taken him so long.

She took a couple of deep gulps, before she finally started talking. "I am not really sure where to start. But I suppose in this case it would be better to start at the end." She took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling herself for something. Jack wondered if he should assure her and tell her he knew why she was here, but he suspected she needed to get thorough this on her own. "I am dying, Jack." He nodded having expected that. "The doctors tell me that at this point there is really nothing else that they can do but make me comfortable. After years of putting up a fight it seems I'm finally going to lose to the cancer."

"Cancer?" he repeated. Maybe he didn't really know why she was here after all.

"Yes. At this point they can't operate on the tumor and chemo isn't having the desired effect. They think I only have a couple more weeks to live." She took another deep breath, and looked up at him mournfully. "I am sorry to have to do this but I need you to do something for me after I am gone. Finish my unfinished business I suppose." She gave a hollow laugh.

Jack reached out to squeeze her hand. "What do you need?" he asked her gently. He wasn't sure why she turned to him to fulfill a deathbed wish, but he wasn't about to turn her down, without at least knowing what she wanted from him.

"I am sorry to burden you with this, but I couldn't think of anybody else who would do this. My family, my friends, they all think I'm crazy. They think I can't hear them when they whisper 'the poor girl', 'lost herself in her grief, and 'can't tell what's real anymore.'"She shook her head. Well that explained why she didn't ask someone close to her. After taking another sip of water she continued "I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid that with me gone, no one will care any more. No one will look. Everyone else promises me that they won't give up but I know that they have already given up."

"Look for what, Ceci?" he asked after she stopped talking. Instead of answering him she pulled her oversized bag towards her, and started looking for something. A minute later she finally found what she was looking for and handed him a small Polaroid.

The first thought that crossed his mind looking at the small picture was: 'why does Ceci have a picture of Mom as a child?' Then he was forced to remember that all of the photos that he had ever seen of his mother at that age were black and white. And the girl, who couldn't have been more than five or six, was wearing Power Ranger Pajamas. He was fairly sure they didn't have those in his mother's time. And Martha O'Neill had brown eyes and not the green and yellow orbs that he could see quite clearly in the picture.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there. It wasn't everyday you found out that you had a daughter. A daughter. After Charlie he had never really thought about having other children. And now suddenly he had a little girl. Except, she wouldn't be little anymore. She would be fifteen or sixteen. A teenager. Cassie's age. He had missed so much.

"Why?" his voice was scratchy. "Why didn't you tell me? I missed everything." Didn't Cecilia know that he would have supported his daughter no matter what. Didn't she understand that he had as much a right to get to know his child as she did?

"I know I can't adequately apologize for not even letting you know about her. At first it was just stupid youth." Cecilia gave him a bitter smile. This was a smile he had never before seen on her face. "When you met me I was going through a stage. The 'I am an Independent Woman and I don't need a Man, though they can be good in bed' Stage. When I found out I was pregnant… Well I'm not proud of it, but it seemed almost like an experiment. A validation of my theories. I could now prove that I, Cecilia Johnson, did not need a man to look after me. I could have a little girl, and I could raise her to be an independent woman, just like me. Stupid and selfish, huh?" This was followed by another bitter laugh 

that chilled him to the bone. "But having a kid makes you grow up. So a couple months after she was born, I tried to track you down. But you had been stationed somewhere else."

And he didn't exactly leave a forwarding address. He wasn't sure why he had never considered what the obvious result of their time together could be. He took another look at the little girl in the picture. His daughter. Charlie's sister. And he didn't even know anything about her.

"What did you call her?" he asked Ceci, hating how week and fragile his voice sounded.

"Elizabeth Alexandra." Cecilia answered. "Elizabeth Alexandra Johnson" Then she smiled, almost as if she were letting him in on a joke.

Jack could understand why Ceci would have found it funny. The little girl in the picture was too young, too small to carry such a big and serious sounding name. The child didn't look like an Elizabeth Alexandra. She looked like a Lizzy, maybe.

"Tell me about her?" he asked. Surely that was why she was here. To finally tell him about his daughter. Ceci probably even wanted them to meet. His heart leapt into his throat, as he wondered what it would be like having a kid again.

"She was born April 17th, Sixteen years ago." And even through the 'I Have a daughter' Haze that Jack currently found himself in, he could tell that something was wrong. Cecilia looked like she was close to tears. A heavy weight settled into his heart as he realized that he probably didn't want to hear what she had to say. He didn't want to know Ceci hadn't just said 'she turned sixteen last month.'

"This is the most recent picture I have of her." Cecilia confirmed his fears.

A very small part of his mind wondered if he was cursed. First Charlie and now this little girl. The rest of him was too busy dying a slow painful death. At one point he thought he had started hyperventilating, but he wasn't sure because the pain in his chest was too great. How had he ever thought that any Gou'uld torture device could inflict pain? Even the worst that the snakes had to offer, felt like a pleasant tickle compared to this. The knowledge that your child was dead. That you had failed him. Nothing compared to that pain.

"How?" He had to know. He had to know how he had failed this little girl. "How did she die?"

"I don't know."

That was enough of a shock to snap Jack out of his trance. The answer occupied him long enough for his training to take over. The same Special Ops training that had allowed him to function on Abydos after Charlie had died. He could still feel the grief, the horror, the pain, but now it was locked up in the back, and the solider, the strategical thinker part of him had taken over completely. And this part of him was already working out a thousand scenarios that could explain why a mother who obviously cared for her child didn't know how the child had died.

"What do you mean?" he asked for clarification.

"I was picking her up from school. She was in the first grade. I was in the car. I could see her, but she hadn't spotted me then. I was at the very back of the line of parents waiting to pick up their kids. It was two o'clock, in broad daylight." Her eyes were closed, and Jack suspected that she was reliving that day. "A black van stopped on the street in front of the school. Six men dressed in black, with ski masks and guns got out. They ran into the crowd of kids waiting for their parents, and snatched Lizzy. Then they ran back across the lawn, got into the van and drove off. It was so unreal. I am fairly sure the van was already driving away before the screaming started. I think everyone, including myself, was too shocked at the idea that something like this could happen and in broad daylight. Nobody could even act at first. By the time a search was started for the van it was gone"

The solider who had taken over Jack's mind considered the angles. It sounded a lot like a strike and extract team. If a target was surrounded by a group of civilians, and relatively unprotected then sometimes it was easier, to simply walk into a crowd of people, grab the target and haul him off into a waiting van in the middle of the day. Civilians could usually be relied upon to freeze at the sight of something so unexpected, and not react until it was already too late. The reason this rarely worked was because Targets were usually protected by something scarier than a group of civilians. But who would go after a little girl like that? To get back at her mother?

"Ceci did you ever…" He trailed off not quite sure how to politely phrase the question.

"Did I ever piss off anybody important enough, that they would go after my daughter?" Ceci asked bitterly. Jack nodded. "No. And I had ten years to go over this, again and again in my head. I was a nurse at a family in practice in Suburbia U.S.A. Not exactly the type of place where you make enemies that go after your daughter with guns in the middle of a crowded school." She drained her glass of water and continued on "They never found a body you know. Or even any conclusive evidence, that she was dead. I know after all this time, there is no chance that she is still alive, but I need to know. I need to know what happened to my daughter." She looked straight in the eye, and Jack felt a kindred soul. Yes he too needed to know. Needed to understand, before he could even begin mourning her.

Remembering how she told him that she needed him to keep looking, he asked her for confirmation: "you want me to find her, don't you?" It was mostly a rhetorical question, but Ceci nodded anyway.

He stood up. There was too much bottled up inside him. He needed to move or he would explode. The training was slipping. The 'parent' side of him was coming through. And he knew that he would never rest until he found the girl. His daughter.

"I swear to you, I will never give up looking for her." He told Cecilia looking straight into her eyes.

She smiled. It was the same smile that he remembered from years ago. The smile that had made Cecilia, Cecilia. He got the feeling that she didn't use the smile much anymore. "Thank you." Was all she said. But she looked relaxed now, calm. Her biggest fear, that her daughter would be forgotten when she died, would not come to pass now.

Jack let the training take control. Right now his emotions would just distract him, and he needed to get started. First, he would need the initial police report, scene analysis, eyewitness statements; hopefully he would find something the police missed. After all he had intimate knowledge of how an extraction team worked.

While he was organizing his thoughts, Ceci had once again opened her oversized bag. She was pulling out files, and notebooks, and putting them on the table in front of Jack.

"What is this?" he asked.

"It's all labeled on the inside of each file, but this is everything that I have been able to gather on Lizzy's disappearance. There are copies of police reports, reports from the private detectives I have hired, my own notes, and research. And you will definitely need this." She held up a red notebook. "This has either up-to-date or at least fairly recent contact information on the eyewitness, as well as the police officers, and private detectives who worked on the case. This way you can talk to them in person. I think everything anyone knows is in these files, and it's mostly self explanatory. But if you have any questions, I will be checking myself into a hospital not too far away from here, so as long as you don't take too long, I'll try to answer any questions you have. "

"You really thought of everything. Didn't you?" He shook his head looking over the files. There really was ten years worth of work in here.

"I do however want to tell you one thing in person. I suspect I know a little bit about why Lizzy was taken. I don't pretend to understand, and the police have never been able to gain anything useful from this, but I'm hoping with your contacts, you might be able to find something out." That definitely got Jack's attention, and he stopped skimming the files. "A month, before she disappeared, a man showed up on my doorstep. Middle aged, not in very good physical condition, very expensive suit. There is a complete description of him in the files. Anyway, he started out talking about how my daughter had a destiny to fight evil, and how she was Chosen and needed to be properly trained, and how I should let him take my daughter because the fate of the world could depend on it, and other such nonsense. I told him to get lost, and instead of leaving he started offering me absurd sums of money in exchange for my daughter. When I finally got him to leave, I called the police filed a report. The first couple of days I wouldn't let Lizzy out of my sight, but when I didn't see the man anywhere for days, I started to relax, and I had almost forgotten about him, when Lizzy was kidnapped. The only thing I know about him, is that he told me he worked for something called the Watcher's Council."

_A.N. This is my first Buffy crossover, so please review and tell me what you think. Should I keep writing?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Buffy or Stargate.

CHAPTER 2

It wasn't fair. She had to be cheating. He didn't know how she could be cheating. But he knew that she was. Because the laws of probability stated that if they played a game ten times, especially if the game required no real skills, then he would beat her at least once. That, and saying that she was cheating was the only manly way he could admit to having lost at Go Fish over ten times in a row. To a drugged up kid no less.

"Xander!" Came a loud exclamation from the doorway that caused Xander to wince, and Zabby to giggle "Honey, how come you didn't say hello on your way up?"

"Hello Martina." Xander put on his best smile, and tried not to show how much the Head Nurse intimidated him. "I was just in a hurry to see Zabby here." He patted the injured Slayer on the shoulder, careful to avoid the cast that covered most of the girl's arm.

Nurse Corbin gave him a look that clearly said she didn't quite believe him. Xander squirmed under her gaze, and then did a mental cheer as she turned her attention to Zabby, instead of calling him on it. He knew that the nurse could be trusted, but she always made him feel as if though he were a four year old, who had gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Which was not how a trained, qualified, and mature Watcher with a charge of his own, was supposed to feel. But he also knew that this was the only hospital in New York where at least some of the staff knew about the supernatural, and the welfare and safety of his slayer was a lot more important than the minor irritation of feeling like a misbehaving child.

He stood aside as Martina Corbin studied the chart, took Zabby's temperature, and checked over the many machines that were currently hooked up to his Slayer. Everything must have been in order because the nurse smiled at the girl and left the room, to continue making her rounds. Xander breathed a quite sight of relief. Even now a week later he kept expecting someone to tell him that their earlier prognosis was false, and Zabby wasn't going to recover from her injuries.

If she hadn't had Slayer Reflexes or Slayer Healing, she would have died in that alley. Xander shivered, remembering all the blood. And the bones that had broken through the skin. And the terrible feeling of helplessness, the knowledge that one of the most important people in his life was dying and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

A year and a half ago, when Giles informed him, that the last unidentified Real Slayer was living in Paris, he had no idea just how important the kid would become to him. Zabby had been so mature, so put together, that her neighbors in Paris had assumed that she was in her twenties. And yet at the same time she had been so broken and hurt. Giles had even wanted to assign a different watcher to Zabby. Apparently he didn't think that someone as screwed up as a one eyed carpenter who was still mourning Anya's death 

could look after someone as screwed up as Elizabeth. Of course the former librarian hadn't been quite so blunt and had even used very polite words like 'better suited' and 'more experienced'. At that point Zabby had not very politely told the Head Watcher where he could stick his 'better suited'.

"Xander. Stop worrying. Or remembering. Remembering is bad." Zabby told him as soon as Nurse Corbin closed the door.

"Huh?"

"You had The Face."At Xander's blank look she elaborated "You know the 'Oh no, I nearly lost my Slayer' Face. After all, I'm fine. The damsel in distress was saved. The mean, though deviously creative Vamp was killed. Now all that's left is the party."

"Which we will do as soon as Warden Corbin and her doctor minions let you go." Xander promised her. "Though I am not really sure about the whole 'I'm fine' assessment. Have you looked in a mirror recently?"

"Slayer healing, remember?" Zabby shot back with a smile. "Doctor Sherman assures me that at the rate I'm improving; I'll be as good as new in three or four weeks."

"Right. So ten fingers?" he asked, beginning the series of ritual questions that he asked every time she got hurt. Zabby grinned, held up her hands, and wiggled her fingers. All ten of them. "Good. Ten toes?" She nodded and he could see movement underneath her blanket that indicated that she was wiggling her toes. "Check. And one brain?"

Zabby looked thoughtful for a second before answering: "Well, minus a few brain cells."

"Good thing you weren't using them anyway." Xander joked. Zabby swatted at his arm, and he quickly moved away, playfully sticking his hands up in a universal 'don't hit me' gesture.

He knew of course that Zabby would never hurt him, even by accident. Even thought she had been activated by Willow's spell two years ago and was one of the seven Real Slayers, she still wasn't comfortable about her power. She had a deep seated hatred of the Watcher's Council. Xander suspected that she had spent some time in the custody of Travers and his merry gang of British morons, but had not been able to confirm his suspicion. All of the Slayer's and Potential's records had been destroyed in the explosion, and Zabby had not been very forthcoming with any information about her past. But from what she had let slip, her biggest fear in her childhood had been that she would be activated, and would therefore be unable to escape the attention of the Council. So when she woke up one morning with Slayer Strength, she had that very day started exercises to help her control her movements and strength, so that not even the most experienced Watcher's would be able to see the Slayer hidden underneath the carefully constructed façade of a normal human girl.

Not even Buffy who was the oldest living, and most experienced Slayer in ten thousand years, displayed the kind of control that Zabby had mastered, mostly on her own before she met Xander. Her distrust of the power within her had caused her to lock it up as far as possible. She had never incidentally broken an alarm clock, or hugged someone till their ribs creaked. She was uncomfortable with providing any demonstration of her power, even if it was something as harmless as unscrewing an extra tight lid.

This was especially obvious in her fighting style. She preferred to take out the baddies from a distance, with a crossbow, or by throwing her stake. In a hand to hand fight she used to duck away from the attacks on her, without ever really hitting back, and without even trying to block the blow unless absolutely necessary. This way she bided her time until her opponent made a mistake and she could deliver a single killing blow. It was a risky way to fight but Zabby's distrust of anything Council related was too overwhelming. And in her mind the Slayer and the Council had been indistinguishable.

Xander suspected that someone Up There, had a really cruel sense of humor. After all how else could you explain that a girl, who hated the Slayer and the Council as much as Zabby did, would end up becoming one of the seven Real Slayers?

Willow had been the one to coin the term 'Real Slayer' to distinguish Slayers like Buffy, Faith, Izabella, and Zabby, from the hundreds of Slayers who had been activated by Willow's spell, but had subsequently been deactivated by the PTB's. At first, in LA, less than a day after Sunnydale collapsed they had been completely baffled when the mini-Slayers suddenly lost their powers. Almost immediately they had started researching the possible causes, trying to figure out if something had external had caused them to lose their powers, or if Willow's spell had somehow gone wrong. They hadn't gotten very far, when a Demon with Bronx accent, whom Buffy had identified as Whistler, had shown up.

Whistler had told them that Willow's spell had worked exactly as it was intended to. It had activated all of the Slayers that were needed to maintain the balance. Apparently while Buffy's resurrection had tipped the scales toward the side of good, and allowed the First to get a foothold in the world, the following destruction unleashed by it, had given the other side too much of an advantage. That was why the Powers had allowed Willow to activate Hundreds of Potentials to defeat the First. But now that the First had was not longer a problem, the unnecessary Slayers had to be deactivated, so that the balance would be restored and something like the First could not settle into their world again.

So they had assumed that things would go back to the way they were before, with the only two Chosen Ones being Buffy and Faith, who had been activated the old fashioned way. Giles had managed to gain control of what was left of the Council, and at Buffy's insistence had dedicated most Council funds and efforts to helping the former Slayers resettle and live normal lives. They had set up offices all over the world, and 

hired shrinks to make the transition smoother, especially for the girls who had been raised and trained by the Council, and had very little interaction with the 'normal' world.

Then about two months after the collapse of the Hellmouth, Riley Finn had approached them with the news that his team had met a new Slayer in Brazil. Since neither Buffy nor Faith had died recently, no matter how temporary, Giles had assumed that either the new 'Slayer' was a hoax or she was a sign of an upcoming apocalypse that had caused the Power's to reactivate some Slayers. When Willow and Giles travelled down to Brazil and met the Slayer, Izabella, they had been shocked to find that she had become a Slayer right before the collapse of Sunny-D, and had never been deactivated. After weeks of research into the situation, a young, geeky, Watcher, who had survived the explosion that killed most of his colleagues, had proposed a theory by which they still operated today. He had brought to their attention the fact that Whistler had said that _unnecessary_ Slayers had been deactivated. Then he cited an old text that said that the job of the Slayer was not to eliminate all demons, but to protect humans from the demons. Then he pointed out that there were many more people now, then there were ten thousand years ago, when the Slayer line had first been created. So it made sense that more Slayers would be needed to protect more people. He concluded that The Power's had most likely used Willow's spell to activate the right number of Slayers needed.

Willow's specially modified tracking spells had then revealed that apart from the three already known Slayers, there were four others scattered across the Globe. And just like that the Watcher's Council had a new purpose and Giles and his newly recruited (or particularly death resistant) Watchers, had set off to find and train the new Slayers. With Buffy's and Faith's help the New Watchers Council had tossed out the rules by which they had operated for hundreds of years, and instead developed a much more modern and humane method of training Slayers, that focused as much on the girls as it did on their duty as Slayers.

Xander in the meantime had been in the midst of one of the greatest self pity fests of all time. Looking back on that period in his life caused him to cringe nowadays, but back then he had felt like his whole life was effectively over. While his friends were keeping themselves busy saving the world, rebuilding the Watcher's Council, and recruiting and training the Real Slayers, Xander had locked himself away from the world, mourning Anya's death. His friends had tried to keep him busy, insisting that he come to Watcher meetings, and handing him out assignments, that would take up time, but would be very hard to screw up.

That was really why he had gotten the assignment to track down the seventh and most illusive Slayer. The Slayer tracking Spell, while very accurate could not be maintained for any extended period of time since it drew so much power from the witch performing the spell. And since this particular Slayer seemed to move around so much, they had been unable to find her. So when Willow had preformed the spell again and pinpointed her location on Rue de St. Michael in Paris, Giles had sent Xander out to look for her. Nobody, including Xander himself, had really been expecting Xander to succeed where dozens of Watchers, Buffy, and Faith had all failed.

Apparently that was what had helped Xander the most, since Zabby had been keeping an eye out for Watchers that were looking for her, ever since her activation. He had looked, in Zabby's words very 'un-Watcherly' and the first time they had met, Xander hadn't realized that Zabby was the Slayer, and she hadn't realized that he worked for the Council. Their first conversation had been not as Watcher and Slayer, but as two Americans living in France. They talked about Donuts.

"What are you thinking about?" Zabby asked.

"Huh?" was Xander's ever eloquent answer.

"You were smiling. What were you thinking about?"

Xander straightened his back and regally declared: "I was contemplating the most essential food group in the world. Anything else would be beneath me attention."

"Ah. Donuts, Twinkies and Ho-Ho's then." Zabby concluded with a grin.

"You are learning fast, my young Padawan." Xander told her in his best Obi-Wan Kanobi voice.

"Soon the student shall surpass the master." His Slayer answered haughtily back. "Though, that was completely unfair."

"What was?"

"You know, talking about tasty food which you will be able to eat as soon as you leave. While I'm stuck in this hell for at least another weak, with only bland hospital food to look forward to. I mean, did you know that they don't even have Jell-O here?"

"No Jell-O?" he exclaimed in mock outrage.

"No Jell-O!" Zabby confirmed. "For desert they serve this thing, which they claim is a brownie. But depending on who's working in the kitchen, this 'brownie' is either a brown, soggy, unsweetened, and uncooked piece of dough, or brow, hard, and unsweetened piece of masonry. "

"Oh you poor thing." Xander patted her hand in joking sympathy. "Well tomorrow, I'll be sure to try and sneak something edible past the Wardens out there." He waved a hand in the general direction of the Nurse's station. "After all how is the Zabster supposed to get better without proper desert?"

"Don't call me that!" She glared at him, though the effect was ruined by her smile. "I have a perfectly good name, and would appreciate if you used it instead of this Zabby/Zabster nonsense" The last was pronounced with a pretentious British accent.

"Suuureee…" He drawled out. They had been having the same mock argument for over fifteen months now. "Elizabeth. Not a boring name at all. Really suits you." He said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

It had all started when the day her new ID's had arrived. For first couple of weeks of training, Xander had walked around on eggshells around his Slayer, afraid that at any moment now her dislike of the Council would overcome the fragile friendship that the two of them ha d formed. When Giles had suggested that the two of them relocate to North America because there was already a Slayer stationed in Rome, and Paris wasn't exactly a Supernatural Hot Spot, Xander had been nervous that she would see the suggestion as too much interference in her life. To his surprise Zabby had really latched on to the idea. Months later, he realized that she had been so eager to move because Giles had let slip that the New Council didn't have anyone working on the North American East Coast, and she had merely wanted to put as much distance between herself and any Council representatives as possible. Fortunately for him, she hadn't included Xander under the Council Representative umbrella.

Formally setting up office in New York had of course presented numerous problems, not the least of which was figuring out a cover story, that would explain to curious neighbors why Xander, a single adult male, was living with a fourteen year old girl who was not related to him. When he mentioned that problem to Zabby, she had surprised Xander once again, by informing him that as long as he didn't mind, she could probably get an ID that named her as Xander's younger sister. They did after all have similar coloring, and no one in Xander's family was alive to contradict the story.

Giles had, however, been reluctant to let them use a fake ID that came from Zabby's sources. The Head Watcher had instead called in a number of favors, and got the U.S. Government to issue a Birth Certificate, and Passport, and Social Security Number to one Elizabeth Jane Harris, born on April 20th in Sunnydale Memorial Hospital to Jessica and Anthony Harris. Apparently the title of Head Watcher carried a lot of clout, even with the U.S. government.

The day the envelope had arrived bearing IDs in the name of Elizabeth Harris, Xander had jokingly suggested that now all that was needed to really make her a part of the family, was a funky nickname. After all Xander was a form of Alexander, and the rest of his Scooby family had names like Buffy, Willow, Dawn, and Rupert, so it would positively obscene if a boring 'Elizabeth' joined the family. They had spent the rest of the night coming up with Scoobified forms of her name. When Xander had come up with Zabby, his Slayer had laughed and said that she would answer to 'Zabby' only when Hell froze over.

So of course after that Xander had refused to call her anything but Zabby, and the nickname had stuck. And since even the Slayer in question had started introducing herself as "Zabby Harris" and not as "Elizabeth", Lucifer was probably in great need of a figure skating instructors.

"Elizabeth suits me much more than Zabby does." Zabby continued arguing. She wasn't serious and they both knew it, but this argument had become a 'family' tradition in the last year, and some traditions were just not meant to be broken. "Zabby sounds like a dog's name. Or maybe a snake's name."

"You've made my point for me! Zabby does suit you perfectly."

And after that, as it always did at this point, the argument disintegrated when Zabby threw whatever she could reach at Xander's head. Today that happened to be a pillow, which Xander caught, and promptly threw back at her, carefully aiming at her lower torso, so that none of the wires that were hooked up to her would be disturbed.

She caught the pillow harmlessly, and then pretended to be outraged: "Honestly! Hitting a poor injured girl! Even Vampires have better manners than that!"

"No they don't. Especially not the ones who drive Psychedelic vans." Xander joked, but the moment the words had left his mouth he regretted them. How could he be so stupid and insensitive?

"Xander" Zabby's tone was no longer joking. She was now sitting up, looking eons older than her sixteen years. "It okay to talk about it"

"Yeah, he nearly killed you and I'm making bad jokes about."

"First of all, it wasn't that bad of joke. It was almost funny. Second if you think about it, you'll realize that it is kind of hilarious. This is exactly the kind of story that years from now my kids are going to ask you about. I can hear it now: 'Uncle Xander, Uncle Xander tells about the time you saved Mommy form a sixties Vampire who tried to run her over with a Van from Scooby Doo!' "She mimicked her future kids speaking in very high pitched tones. "And then you are going to say 'Well kids, one dark, cloudy night, your mother and I were coming back from patrol, when she heard a scream in a very dark and a very creepy alley. This was back when your mother couldn't spot a trap, even when if it was marked by a big flashing neon sing that said TRAP, so she rushed right into the alley, only to find a woman with a broken leg lying on the ground. Suddenly she heard an engine start and saw a big Van coming toward her. And back then your mother was very lazy, and didn't train enough, so she couldn't move fast enough to get both herself and the woman out of the way. In fact she was almost too slow to push the poor woman out of the Van's path. Now even back then I was much smarter and much more experienced that your mother, so I didn't rush in like a half cooked headless chicken, and instead quietly waited until the Vamp got out of the Van to finish off your mother and then staked him. And that is how I saved both your mother's life and the life of the woman who had been used as bait."' Zabby finished off 'Xander's story' with a cough, because 'Xander's unnaturally deep voice' had made her throat scratchy.

"I think the story will be told a little differently. First of all it would be: 'And your mother, knowing that she could not save both of them, heroically, used the few seconds before impact to push the innocent civilian out of the way." And then it would be "And when your Uncle Xander saw the Vamp get out of the Van, his self preservation kicked in, and your Coward of an Uncle stabbed the Vamp in the Back, before the Sucker had a chance to realize that there was someone in the alley who was still unhurt.'"

"Well, whichever version you tell, the end result is that you saved my life." Zabby concluded with a grin. "So stop berating yourself. Don't argue with me" she added when she saw Xander opening his mouth to say something. "You are not going to win. So don't be a sore loser and gracefully change the topic."

"To what?"

"Well, how are the GI Joe's fitting in?"

"They're not. It's kind of funny seeing these big guys, who spent the last couple of months working in Jungles, and mostly uninhabited areas, trying to be subtle and invisible in NY. They stick out like sore thumbs, so they have only killed off the very, very, very stupid demons. You know, the ones that are too dumb too see the Flashing Neon sign that the military guys carry around."

"Neon Sign?"

"Yeah. It says DEMON HUNTERS on it." Xander joked. Then more seriously he added "But their presence is keeping most of the Bad Guys in line. Everyone knows they're there, and nobody wants to be nominated for the Darwin Awards."

As far as Xander was concerned one of the best changes that Giles had brought about since he took over the Watcher's Council was the fact that he managed to cooperate with the various military units, whose job was to fight the Supernatural. It turned out that many countries had what Riley described as HST (Hostile Sub Terrestrials) teams. The Initiative was simply an example of what happened when the wrong people took over those operations. At first Giles had tried to shut down these teams, but after realizing that no government wanted to rely solely on the Watchers Council for protection, Giles had suggested a compromise.

Military personnel, who were assigned to a Demon Hunting team, would receive Council training, and when necessary, backup from the Slayers. In return Giles got a say on who was permitted on these teams, and he was kept in the loop on all of their operations.

For the most part, the arrangement worked wonderfully, especially in America, where Riley Finn had taken over as the head of the HST Unit. So when Zabby had been injured, Riley had promptly sent in a small team of his men to NY, to avoid the bloodshed that usually followed when the local Demon population heard that the Slayer 

was incapacitated. It also left Xander with more time to spend at the hospital with his Slayer.

Zabby yawned and Xander discreetly checked the time. It was seven in the afternoon, but he wasn't really surprised to see that she was already tired. Slayer's seemed to have an innate fear of Hospitals. Unlike normal humans, fear made Slayers even more hyperactive that they would normally be. Usually such a response helped keep the girls alive, but in Zabby's case, moving around would only delay her recovery. She had broken her legs, multiple ribs, and her left arm, not to mention the massive internal injuries that she had suffered. Of course, her Slayer Healing meant that she would only be confined to bed for a few weeks instead of many months, but that was still a few weeks too many for a hyperactive Slayer.

So Doctor Sherman had prescribed sedatives to insure that Zabby stayed still. Slayer Metabolism, however, also meant that a normal dose of sedatives simply wouldn't do the trick. The doctor had prescribed twice the dose that it would take to keep a normal human unconscious. And while that dose had only made Zabby tire out more easily than usual, instead of knocking her out as it was supposed to, Sherman had been uncomfortable with prescribing a bigger dose for fear of harmful side effects.

"Do you have to go home, and help out the commando guys?" Zabby asked quietly. Xander silently berated himself. Of course she had seen him checking his watch.

"Nah. I got all the time in the world to spend with you. Well at least till Corbin kicks me out." At her disbelieving look he elaborated "First of all, they've been here a week. They don't need me to hold their hands, and show them the main Demon Attractions in the City. Second, if something does come up they have my cell phone number. And third, it's August. There is still over an hour left before sunset. And they definitely don't need me while they're cleaning out their weapons and talking about proper chain of command, or whatever it is military guys talk about in their spare time."

Zabby smiled gratefully. He knew that she hated being in the hospital alone, but would never actually ask him to stay. She seemed to think she would be too much of a burden. One day, Xander really hoped to break her of that misconception. One day he would make her see, that being in need of a friend did not make her a burden, just like he had made her see that the Slayer really was independent from the Council, and that the New Watchers Council was different from the Old Watchers Council. Well, to be perfectly honest they were still working on the second one. She had developed friendships with her Sister Slayers, and got along wonderfully with Willow, and most of the witches that the Council hired. But Giles and the more traditional Watchers (the tea drinking, tweed dressing, research doing type) made her nervous, so Xander tried to keep meetings between her and the Brits to a minimum.

"I just realized I never told you about this one car that was parked on our street the other day." Xander started telling her. Conversation about cars always put Zabby to sleep even when she didn't have huge amounts of sedatives floating around in her 

system. He continued telling her about cylinder engines and horsepower, while she occasionally made noises like 'hmmm' and 'really?' to show that she was still listening. Eventually the responses got farther and farther apart, until he was fairly sure that she was soundly asleep. He continued his monologue for another ten minutes just to be on the safe side.

Then he pulled her blankets up around her, and tucked her in. It was times like these, when Zabby looked so small, and pale, and vulnerable, that Xander really understood why Buffy acted the way she did when Dawn was in trouble. Zabby and he weren't related by blood of course, but Xander knew that your Family didn't require shared genes. Zabby was his baby sister in every way that counted. She could annoy the hell out of him sometimes, but he knew that just like Buffy, he could easily give up his life to keep his 'sister' safe.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the nurses enter the room, probably to tell him that visiting hours were over, and it was time to go home. Xander nodded to her to show that he understood, then brushed a quick kiss on Zabby's forehead, whispered 'Good Night', and started gathering up his things. He was halfway to the door, when a bright light filled the room.

Xander felt like he had been blinded by the flash, though his vision returned to normal a few seconds after the light faded. He spun around looking for the source, but the sight that met his eyes made his heart freeze.

The bed, which his Slayer had occupied just moments ago, was empty. Well, there was a blanket, some wires and needles that had been connected to her, and a pillow, but nothing else.

Zabby Harris was missing.

_A.N. Thank you to all of the wonderful people who reviewed the last chapter. I was overwhelmed by the number of responses that I got (I have never had that many reviews for a single chapter before), and the feedback really helped me write this chapter. _

_However, about half the people who reviewed thought that this was a story about Buffy's real Father, and that I would be really deviating from cannon. It wasn't until I started getting feedback that I remembered that Buffy is a derivative of Elizabeth, so I'm really sorry for the confusion that the name caused._

_And last, though not least, please keep the reviews coming. I especially want to hear people's opinion's on Zabby, since writing OCs makes me nervous. I have this phobia that my original character will become a Mary Sue, so I usually avoid writing OCs into main character roles (unless it's a villain). Reviews would especially help, since the next chapter is shaping up to be even more Zabby oriented, and with each paragraph I write, I get more and more nervous._


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Buffy or Stargate.

CHAPTER 3

Judging by the looks on the Airmen's faces, SG-1 really needed a shower. Actually, Jack suspected that they were way past the stage of just needing showers, and were now well into the stage where they could be labeled Bio-Hazardous. Of course that couldn't be helped. Thor wasn't exactly the kind of guy who would hang around the briefing room, while Jack and his team took a nice, long, hot shower. The Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet was too busy for that. He was so busy in fact, that he would usually just beam SG-1 someplace, and then leave. So when Thor did offer to stick around for debriefing, Hammond had decided that to sacrifice the air in the briefing room, rather than risk Thor having to leave while SG-1 was in the shower.

Jack listened to Carter fill the General in on the last two weeks, while he tried to work out the kinks in his neck. He was looking forward to actually sleeping in his own bed for once. Gou'uld cells, and the floors of Asgard vessels did not make suitable mattresses for men his age. Though he doubted it would make much of a difference. He hadn't really been able to sleep through the night for months now. Ceci's ghost, and the ghosts of two little children, Charlie and Lizzy wouldn't let him rest.

They were always around, these ghosts. Always asking the same question: "Why did you fail us?" During the day he ignore the ghosts, he could distract himself. But at night there would be no distraction. He would have to face them once again. And it was difficult to fall asleep with the constant mantra of 'you failed us' filling whatever room he was in.

"Would you like some more Coffee as well Sir?" Carter asked. Her voice snatched him out of his morbid thoughts and looking over at her he knew that that was her intention. SG-1 had always been one of the best things that ever happened to him, but during the last three months they had been positively God sent. They had silently and sometimes not so silently supported him. After Ceci had dropped the bombshell on him, it was SG-1 who had helped him sort though all of the files that Ceci had acquired. He had known almost as soon as Ceci had left his house on that May afternoon, that he would never be able to find out what happened to his daughter without his team. If nothing else he had to tell Carter about Elizabeth Johnson, because he needed her computer skills, and it would have been unfair to ask her to keep it a secret from the rest of their team. Teal'c's help had also been invaluable. While the Jaffa had been unable to help with the research he had kept Jack sane thorough the last few months. It had been Teal'c who had talked Jack out of quitting the SGC so that he could devote all of his time to searching. The big guy had pointed out that if the planet was obliterated by the Gou'uld, then there would be unable to find out what happened to his daughter, since he, and everyone else on the planet would be dead. T was good at seeing the big picture like that.

Instead Jack had talked to General Hammond, and the two of them had agreed that SG-1 was to be put on stand down for a couple of months, barring major emergencies. This had been one of those emergencies. The Tok-Ra had insisted that they needed SG-1 to carry out their plan against one of the minor System Lords. He wasn't a big player but he had found his niche building and supplying the other 

Gou'uld with weapons and ships. The Tok-Ra had theorized that destroying him and his base, would inconvenience the Goa'uld, quite a bit, and would hopefully give the Tauri and Tok'Ra an advantage.

Of course everything had gone the FUBAR way, and SG-1had realized that it was a trap only after they had found themselves in a cell. Thor had impeccable timing, as always, and he had beamed them out just as they were about to be executed. Apparently the little guy had decided that he needed some more help with 'dumbing down' process. So they had spent another week chasing all over Thor's galaxy after the Replicators.

Carter handed him a thermos, and Jack gratefully refilled his cup. Lately he had been drinking as much coffee as Daniel, but it did allow him to function normally after only a few hours of sleep a night. And he doubted he would be able to sleep soundly until he fulfilled his vow to Cecilia. And that didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon. The only lead they had come up with during the last few months was some ancient references to the Watcher's Council's.

Surprisingly it wasn't Carters research skills that had unearthed the information, but Daniel's musty books. When he had first told the team about his daughter, and her kidnapping, Daniel had muttered something about having read something somewhere about the Watcher's Council. It had taken the young Archeologist less than a week to track down several medieval texts that mentioned the Watcher's Council. From what Daniel had put together, they had learnt that the Council used to be an obscure cult in the middle ages. It seemed to consist of men who believed in the Ancient Goddess Sineya, who manifested herself in a teenage girl, giving the girl strength and speed, and in return protected her followers from demons and devils. The cult also had a habit of sacrificing the girl in a ritual called the Cruciamentum, before the girl reached adult hood. They called themselves the Watchers because they trained and prepared the girl for Sineya's possession, and then killed her, so that the 'goddess' could move on to a younger and less scarred girl.

Up until the whole sacrificing bit, Jack thought that Sineya sounded a whole lot like a Gou'uld. But neither Teal'c nor any of the Tok'ra had ever heard of that name, and Daniel hadn't been able to find any other references to her. The younger man had also mentioned that it was possible that the cult had died out, and then been reinstated during the last century, by a nutter who had stumbled across the same texts that Daniel was using now. That would explain, Daniel claimed, why there were no references to them past the fourteenth century.

Jack heard General Hammond wrapping up the briefing. He glanced at watch and noticed that the they had been in debrief for only twenty minutes. He tried not to let the smile show on his face. Apparently the smell must have been even worse that he had first assumed. But who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?

"Well, Thor, buddy, it was great seeing you." Jack started saying goodbye to the little grey alien. "And I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but we hope that you won't be needing too much help in the future." He smiled to let the alien know that he was joking.

"Actually Thor, I had a question that doesn't concern the meeting." Carter said, causing everyone to stop gathering up their things, and sit back down.

"Of course, Major Carter."

"It's about the beaming technology. How do you lock on to the person that you want to beam up?"

"Everyone has a unique genetic code, Major Carter." Thor answered, blinking up at Carter slowly. "The beaming technology, as you call is able to distinguish between the different genetic signatures. "

"I suspected it was something like that." Carter gave Jack a look, that he wasn't quite able to understand, and then continued: "What if you only had half of a genetic code?"

And just like a light bulb going off in his head, Jack understood what Carter was trying to do. Thor apparently did not, and said so.

"Well say you had the DNA of only one parent. Could you find the child?" Carter clarified.

"It would take a lot longer. The scan would track down all close relatives of the parent in question Major Carter, and I would have to insert other information for the child to help narrow down the search, Major Carter. May I ask why you are inquiring?"

Jack's second in command gave him another look, this time obviously asking for permission to fill Thor in on the situation. He knew he should give some sign for her to go ahead, but he was having to much trouble doing anything but beaming at his beautiful, brilliant, astrophysicist. It was so simple. So obvious. And he had no idea how he had ever managed to survive without her.

Apart from Daniel's Ancient Texts they hadn't been able to find any other leads on Elizabeth. And the thought of the children-sacrificing creeps was enough to make Jack snap out of his euphoria. He gestured to Carter to let her know that he would take over from here, and then turned to Thor.

"Would you be able to find someone who is dead?" It wasn't a question that he really wanted to think about it, but the solider in him forced it out. The reality was that his daughter had been missing for ten years, most likely kidnapped by some Goddess worshiping nutters. Even Ceci had given up any hope that her daughter could still be alive for all this time.

"That would depend on the condition of the body O'Neill. If the body was well preserved and there is enough genetic material left to track then the sensors on my ship will detect the corpse. If the body was cremated, or has decomposed too much, then my sensors will not pick up anything."

So there was a good chance that even if he bared his soul to Thor, the only thing he would get in return would be the dreaded confirmation that his other child was also dead. Heck, there was a chance that they wouldn't even find her body, and wouldn't be able to find who killed his little girl. But it was 

still the most promising lead they'd had in three months, and if there was even a chance of Jack coming closer to fulfilling his oath to Ceci, then retelling the painful story was only a small price to pay for it.

"I have a daughter."

Thor blinked and looked surprised: "I was not aware you had offspring, O'Neill"

"Well neither was I" He muttered, feeling a pang of anger at Cecilia, for not telling him sooner. Thor now looked confused, and Jack felt his amusement replacing his anger. Who'd thunk it? He managed to get illicit two different facial expressions from the usually expressionless alien. Then he decided to pretend he hadn't said the last part out loud. As much as he liked the little guy, there was no way he was explaining about one night stands to him. Though to be perfectly fair, he and Ceci had a little more than a one night stand, but he didn't want to explain Summer Flings to the Asgard either.

"She has been missing for ten years." He said instead.

"And you would like my help to find her?" Thor asked. When Jack nodded, he continued: "I have time, so we can start looking for her now, O'Neill. You will have to tell me everything you know about her, so that I can enter some parameters into the computer"

"We're coming too." Daniel said quickly, throwing a questioning look at General Hammond. The portly General had just nodded, when the members of SG-1 and Thor were engulfed by a while light and found themselves on an Asgard vessel.

It didn't take Jack very long to fill in the 'parameters.' Jack knew disgustingly little about his daughter, after all. Female. Age sixteen. And that was about it.

Thor started the search, but warned them that it could take a very long while, since they did not have a complete genetic code, and they knew so little about her.

His team, Jack noticed, was lingering very close to him, silently supporting him. They had gotten very good at it during the last few months. He gave them a tired smile, to let them know that he knew what they were doing, and then settled down against a wall to wait. He had thought that once he got so close to getting some answers, he would be excited. Instead he felt drained.

In a moment of weakness, about two month ago, Jack had called a friend of his, who worked in a Police Department in LA. Tom investigated several kidnappings during his career. Jack had wanted to find out what the chance Elizabeth had of being alive ten years after her disappearance. Now he wished he didn't know those statistics. The odds were so against Lizzy and he wasn't sure he was really ready to give up all hope.

Carter and Daniel were both questioning Thor. The Major was asking questions about technology, and Daniel seemed to be trying to understand Asgard Grammar structure. Teal'c looked as stoic as ever, and seemed to be paying very close attention to Thor's answers. Jack was thankful for their attempts at pretending that everything was normal. After all, as long as they weren't too obvious 

about it he could maintain his manly pride by pretending he couldn't see the concerned glances that were occasionally directed at him. He could pretend that everything was normal too. He forced his mind away from Lizzy and tried his hardest to focus on Thor as well.

It took over half an hour, before the big computer started making some new noise. Thor and Carter both studied the screen intensely, and Thor turned to him:

"I believe I may have a match O'Neill"

Jack just sank further into the wall. He really wasn't prepared for this. It was only a great deal of self-control that stopped him from demanding that Thor beam them back into the base, because he, Jack O'Neill, had changed his mind and really didn't want to know what fate Lizzy had met. Not yet at least.

"Sir!" Carter exclaimed excitedly. "There are biometric readings."

"Biometric readings, Carter?" he asked, and felt a great stab of pride, because his voice had been almost steady. Surely that couldn't mean what he thought it meant.

"There is a pulse, and Synaptic activity." Carter was grinning "She's alive, sir."

"Let me see." Jack practically flew over to the screen. Carter showed him some lines that did sort of look like the lines that the terminals in the infirmary displayed. "Where?" he asked.

Thor started moving the little stones around, and another screen displayed what Jack recognized as the East Coast of the U.S. There was a little blinking dot on the screen, which Jack assumed must be his daughter. Thor moved some more stones around, the picture zoomed in, and even though the map wasn't labeled, it was easy to recognize Manhattan, now displayed on the screen.

"Sir, if we can get a precise location, at this point in time, it shouldn't be too hard to track her down in person." Carter was saying. Jack was glad that someone was doing the thinking because he was too elated to think anything beyond 'she's alive'.

"I can lock on to her genetic code, and beam her aboard." Thor offered.

"NO! came three very strong protests from the human members of SG-1. As much as Jack wanted to meet his daughter as soon as possible, he didn't think that getting kidnapped by four very stinky people and one Roswell alien was the right way to make a good first impression. He waited sixteen years to meet her, and three months to find out what had happened to her. He could wait another day, so that he could shower and get to New York in person. Well he and his team. He doubted that they would let him go on his own. Carter and Daniel looked about as elated as he felt, and even Teal'c looked thrilled. Thrilled in a very calm, Jaffa way, of course.

"We really appreciate your help, Thor, but most people on our planet don't know about aliens, and the Stargate." Daniel started explaining. "And we could get into a lot of trouble if you beamed somebody aboard who wasn't cleared to know about it."

Thor blinked, which everyone took to mean that the Asgard understood, why they were refusing further help.

Jack watched as the Major fiddled around with the map and her own computer. As a thought occurred to him, he asked "Carter how will we find her from just one reading? I mean New York is huge, and what are we supposed to do once she moves?"

Thor, apparently still eager to help, offered a solution: "I will enter her genetic code into my computer to insure that it will be easier to locate her next time if the need arises."

"Actually sir, I think this location, would be her home, or at least a place she feels comfortable in." at Jack confused look, Carter elaborated "I am not a doctor, but I think these readings indicate that she is asleep. Her heart rate and these… Holy Hannah!"

Jack never did find out whatever else indicated that Lizzy was asleep, because at that moment something went wrong with the computers. He didn't need to have Carter's grasp of technology to know that lightning and flashing screens, and the panicked looks on the faces of those who did understand the doohickeys, meant that nothing good was happening. Before he even had a chance to yell a question at Carter, the bridge became filled with the white light of the beaming technology, and a form appeared on the floor.

"Thor! I said NO beaming!" He yelled already moving towards the figure on the floor. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Daniel and Teal'c doing the same, leaving Sam and Thor to deal with whatever difficulties they were having with the computers. Not like the three of them could help with the technology anyway.

"I did not initiate a beaming command, O'Neill. There seems to be some malfunctionl. It is possible that the ship took some damage during out battle with the Replicators, and the initial diagnostic scans did not reveal the problem."

Jack wasn't really listening to Thor, because he had reached the person on the floor. His mind started filing away details: female, young, wearing a hospital gown, casts on both her legs and, her arm, and numerous bandages. And she still hadn't moved. He quickly put his fingers on her neck and released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, when he felt a gentle fluttering against his fingertips. Unconscious, and not dead then. Probably not sleeping, because even the dead couldn't sleep through the racket that was coming from the control terminals.

"Jack, Could she have hit her head on the floor when she was beamed up? I mean it is malfunctioning right now." Daniel observed. He must have reached the same conclusion as Jack about the girl's state of consciousness.

And before they had a chance to check her head for recent injuries, the Bridge of the Asgard vessel suddenly got very quite. Jack glanced over at Carter and Thor who were looking intently at the now not-flashing screens.

"Carter?" he didn't need to elaborate. She would understand the unspoken question.

"Sir, there was apparently some sort of glitch, possibly as Thor said caused by the replicators. It seems to have sorted itself out, for the moment."

"I will transport the five of you back to the SGC O'Neill, and then I will shut down all non-essential systems, to run a more detailed diagnostic." Thor said as he did just that, without waiting for Jack to say goodbye.

Usually O'Neill would have been annoyed to find himself suddenly beamed back down on Earth with so little warning, but right now, he just wanted to get Janet to look at the girl. The hospital gown, the casts, bandages, and the unconsciousness were making him very nervous.

SG-1 appeared in the briefing room, with Jack and Daniel still kneeling next to the girl. SG-2 who had probably been in briefing looked surprised, but General Hammond just looked resigned.

"What in God's name happened now Colonel?"

"Sir, we need a medical team in here first." Daniel answered for Jack.

Not that Jack had even heard the General's question. His whole attention was focused on the girl lying on the ground. Her breathing was more irregular now, and her eyelids seemed to be twitching. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally opened her eyes, and Jack felt his heart constrict.

He had known about his daughter for three months now, but that hadn't been enough time for it to really sink in. Up on Thor's ship he had barely began to accept the fact that he had a living daughter. He hadn't been prepared to meet her, so some tiny voice in the back of his mind had quietly been whispering that the malfunction could have beamed up anybody. So what if she was the right age, and the sensors had been focused on his daughter. That there was no proof that this was Elizabeth. Of course now he couldn't use that excuse any more.

Her eyes were green with flecks of yellow. Just like Cecilia's eyes. Just like the eyes of the little girl in the pictures that Ceci had given him. Elizabeth's eyes. His daughter's eyes.

He snapped himself out of his stupor with the thought, that if he was confused and shocked then she must be feeling a hundred times worse. He tried to think of something reassuring to say, but all he could com up with was "It's all right." So he said that.

Elizabeth's lips moved and she mumbled a one word question. Jack thought it sounded like "Sand?" but he couldn't be sure. Then her eyes rolled back until all he could see was the whites and she started convulsing.

#

Five six, turn, one, two, three, four, neon green spot, five, six, turn, one two, spot again, three, four…

"Jack, I think that's Sam coming this way." Daniel interrupted his pacing.

Jack looked up from the fascinating grey concrete, to see the blonde head of his second in command hurrying towards him. He breathed a sight of relief. Hopefully he would get some answers. The Doc and the Rottweilers she called nurses hadn't been very forthcoming.

"Sir." Carter nodded to him, and then greeted Daniel and Teal'c. "How is she?"

"Apparently she had massive internal damage. Looks like something put a lot of stress on her internal organs. Her heart actually stopped twice, before Janet managed to stabilize her. They say she's okay but they won't let us in there until they figure out what went wrong."

"I can help with that, sir. Thor isolated the program that malfunctioned. Apparently in his home galaxy, before the Replicators became a problem, they had some sort of creature that did not have a physical form but could possess those that did. So Asgard vessels are all equipped with technology to detect and remove these beings. These creatures were wiped out years ago, so the detection and removal systems, have taken some damage from the years of neglect. The battle with the Replicators completely fried the system, and the diagnostic that Thor ran didn't show the damage, because nowadays this is one of the most unimportant systems on board. When we were tracking Elizabeth from space, the system activated and pulled her on board trying to remove a parasite that wasn't there. Basically we think it started pulling her insides out."

"A parasite, Carter? Are we sure that there isn't some Goa'uld connection? Because first we had the Watcher's Council, which worshipped a very Goa'uld like Sineya, and then we have Thor's Thingamabobs trying to pull out a ghostly Goa'uld. I'm starting to get nervous here."

"Thor said the creatures were nothing like the Goa'uld, minus the possession bit, and they have been extinct for years. Elizabeth displays no symptoms of a possession. So it was just a glitch in a neglected system" Carter assured him.

"So a coincidence Carter? You know I hate those."

"Actually, Jack, I think we may just have a tainted perspective." Daniel joined the conversation. "We work with Goa'ulds all the time, and so it is likely we start seeing them everywhere, even when the situation is only a little bit similar. I mean with Sineya, there was no mention of glowing eyes, or of advanced technology, but we see the word Goddess, and we immediately connect it with the Goa'uld. And with the parasite from Thor's galaxy…

"Okay, okay, I get it. I'm paranoid." Jack rubbed his temples, and then sniffed the air discreetly. "Carter report to Frasier. Tell her there is no danger of us getting infected. And then go take a shower." He said the last part with a grin. A few hours ago the three of them had smelled just as bad. But while Carter had talked Thor into letting her help with the diagnostics, Jack had found a place outside of the infirmary and bugged every nurse and doctor that had come out for news. Daniel and Teal'c had come along to do the silent support thing that they had gotten so good at in the last few months.

Finally after Elizabeth had been stabilized, Janet herself had come out, and told them that they were keeping Lizzy isolated, until they knew what caused such massive internal damage. She had also told them in no uncertain terms, that even if they found that the condition wasn't contagious, Janet still wasn't going to let people so 'unhygienic' near her patient. So the three men (well, two men, one Jaffa) had trotted off to the locker room to wash two weeks worth of smell and grime off of themselves. And then they had come back to take up their vigil in the hallway again.

"Yes Sir." Carter said with a grin to match his, and hurried into the infirmary. A few minutes later Sam came out, and headed towards the locker room. In another few minutes one of Janet's nurses left the infirmary and approached the group waiting in the hallway.

"Dr. Frasier says that you may now see the patient…." The nurse informed them with a cheeky smile, "…as long as you pass the smell test."

_A.N.: I know I promised more Zabby in this chapter, but it got too long so I broke it up into two parts. Next Chapter is the one that will have Zabby in it. Cross my heart._

_I would also like to thank all the people who reviewed. It really restored my confidence in my OC writing abilities. _

_And one last note, everyone please give a round of applause to Allen Pitt who figured out the 'beaming technology to find Elizabeth' bit of the plot, way back when after Chapter one. Pre-cog abilities, maybe?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Buffy or Stargate.

CHAPTER 4

The first thing she felt was pain. Sadly the second thing she felt was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude towards whatever higher being was watching over her. Pain meant that she was alive. And alive meant that she wasn't dead. And dead was bad. Therefore Pain was good. The third thing she felt was confusion. Had she gotten worse for some reason? But the doctors had said that she was steadily improving, and that her internal injuries were healed. And her arms and legs didn't hurt much anymore, the pain was coming from inside. And it wasn't very likely that she could get fresh injuries while lying in the hospital protected by Xander, Finn's Commandos, and layers and layers of Rosenberg's spells.

Then her brain started working a little better, the fog lifted, and Zabby noticed that this was not the same bed she had fallen asleep in. Most likely she wasn't even in the same hospital that she had fallen asleep in. Her arms were touching the bed railing on either side, which meant that the bed was quite narrow. And she distinctly remembered overhearing two nurses talking about how the last old and narrow bed in the hospital had finally been replaced with a newer, wider, more high-tech version. Keeping her eyes shut, just in case, she sniffed the air, trying to identify the smells. She smelled Antiseptic and cleaning agents, the typical hospital smells. Unfortunately modern hospitals all smelled the same, and that didn't help her much.

She forced herself to monitor her breathing for a few seconds. It wouldn't do any good to keep her eyes shut if the too shallow breaths gave her away. Then Zabby focused on the sounds. First thing she noticed was a person sleeping by her bed. It wasn't Xander. This person had soft almost inaudible snores. Xander either didn't snore, or he snored loud enough to be heard through walls. The snores were coming from close to the bed and seemed to be a little below the level of the bed. So it wasn't another patient, since another bed would be farther away and on the same level. That made her feel a lot safer. People who meant her harm probably wouldn't have fallen asleep next to her. Especially since her wrists were unrestrained.

Then Zabby heard a sliding sound (a door possibly?) and heard footsteps coming closer. She heard the sliding sound again just as the smell of food hit her nose. She was engulfed by a moment of panic, wondering how they knew that she was awake, and then calmed down when she heard the newcomer say:

"Sir?" the newcomer was a woman, who sounded like she was addressing the person sleeping next to Zabby. "Colonel? I brought you some food." That interrupted the snoring.

"Wha'?" A male voice this time. He continued with some muffled curses, finally followed by a "Carter?"

"Yes, sir. I brought some food up from the Cafeteria." The woman, Carter, said. Both of them sounded military, and Zabby wondered if these were Riley Finn's guys. She didn't know all of them, and it was quite possible that she simply hadn't met these two.

"Thanks." The Colonel said. There was sounds of movement, though Zabby couldn't quite tell what was being moved.

"She still asleep then, huh?" That came from the female.

"Janet says it's a good thing. Apparently the internal damage wasn't as bad as it they thought at first, because most of her vitals are now almost back to normal. But they still don't want her moving around too much in case she aggravates something, and for some reason Janet has decided to practice old fashioned kind of medicine, and hope that she won't wake up too soon, instead of giving her drugs like normal doctors would. " Okay, internal damage would explain why everything hurt. She had to give the Colonel guy credit for sounding concerned about her, even if he did want to drug her. Usually, bad guys didn't worry about the welfare of their victims, and Doctor Sherman had also been a member of the 'Drug Zabby so she doesn't Move' Club'.

"You mean nobody told you sir?" This was followed by silence, and Zabby suspected that there was a lot of non-verbal communication going on. "She had a lot of drugs in her. Janet is trying to flush them out of her system, because her blood contains enough sedatives to knock out an elephant. I don't even want to know what that would do to an underweight kid." Zabby bristled silently. She wasn't a kid! And she wasn't underweight either, at least not by Slayer standards. Slayer metabolism made gaining weight practically impossible.

"She was drugged?!" The guy yelled, apparently outraged. Hypocritical much? "You think she was being held somewhere against her will?"

"That's the part that doesn't make any sense. I tracked down her previous location. It was a St. Marian's Hospital, in the middle of their recovery ward."

"You mean she was overdosed by accident?"

"No. That's the problem. Janet says that she's heard of St. Marian's. It has an impeccable reputation, and they hire only the best doctors. Elizabeth's x-rays reveal that she had numerous broken bones, most likely from being hit with a car, but these injuries are months old. They were mostly healed over. Yet she was still wearing heavy plaster casts, and she was most likely still confined to a bed. At this point in her recovery, any doctor with half a brain would have made sure that she was in physical therapy, and she most certainly didn't need the plaster casts. It's just too much of a coincidence, that she was not only completely drugged out of her mind, but also administered the wrong type of treatment, especially since she was being treated in a respectable hospital, and not by some quack with an online Medical degree. We're trying to get her medical records to see if they can tell us something, but that might take a while."

Zabby took a moment to process what the woman had unknowingly revealed. They knew her name, but they didn't seem to know about the Slayer. The man also seemed to be very protective of her. These would have been reassuring if she could figure out why someone other than Xander would care just about Elizabeth.

Second, she guessed that whatever had caused her new internal injuries, must have been very life threatening. Xander helped her come to terms with the Slayer by letting her read texts of Slayers' accomplishments despite the Council. Several of the text's Xander had found talked about how in moments of great danger, Slayer Healing became an even more powerful force than usual. There was one Slayer in Florence, whose broken leg healed in a matter of hours, while she was held hostage by Master Vamp. Most likely her older injuries, and her newer ones had healed themselves quite rapidly when she was in danger. Now if only she knew what that danger was.

Unfortunately the two people in the room with her, didn't seem inclined to talk anymore, and after a few minutes the woman made her excuses, something about having to call a contact, and then left.

There was a sound of metal hitting something, and Zabby thought it sounded the guy was going to eat his food now. She suspected that Colonels in the U.S. military weren't usually the types who talked to themselves, so she was left without a source of information. She weighed the pros and cons of 'waking up'. On one hand they were more likely to say something they didn't want her knowing, if they thought she was unconscious. On the other hand a doctor could come in here at any moment and take a look at the machines and realize that she wasn't asleep. That would make them suspicious of her, which wouldn't be very good for her chances of her learning anything important. Suspicious people were cautious people.

So waking up it was. Besides she could always play the 'sick child' card, and pretend to be really freaked out by a new environment. She could probably claim that everything was all fuzzy, and she didn't quite remember what happened. They knew that she had a lot of drugs in her system, and they didn't seem to know about her Slayer metabolism so they most likely wouldn't think anything odd about her being dazed and confused. Besides she was still in a lot of pain, and while her years of council training and her experience as a Slayer meant that her pain threshold was fairy high, most normal girls her age would hardly be able to think when they were in this much pain.

She started with a low moan. Then she let her eyes flutter open. She was looking at a grey concrete ceiling with pipes on them. Another moan of pain, and she shut her eyes. There were steps coming towards her and a concerned voice was saying "Hey, it's all right."

"Hurts" she grasped. Then she wondered if she was laying it on too thick but the guy was already gone apparently to call the doctor. She heard him saying 'Doc she's awake', and guessed that since she hadn't heard the door, he must be speaking to a phone, or maybe some sort of intercom.

She opened the eyes slowly to look at the Colonel. Military fatigues, Military haircut, mid to late forties. And right now he looked very uncomfortable.

"Who a'e you" she slurred the 'are' a little, to seem a more disoriented. The more they thought of her as confused and pathetic, the less likely they were to be cautious of her.

"I'm Jack." Jack said, looking even more uncomfortable.

"I don't know any Jacks." She observed. He was currently her most likely source of information. He seemed to be really worried about her, and he was a Colonel. That was high enough up the food chain that he would probably know what was going on here. Wherever here was.

"We've never met." Now he looked like he was trying to blend into the wall. Fortunately for him, the piece of metal that served as a door slid open, and a woman who was obviously the doctor stepped in. Through the door, Zabby saw more grey concrete with some uniformed men and women going somewhere. So either this was a military hospital, or she was in the infirmary of a medical base. Jack breathed a sight of relief.

"Miss Johnson. I'm glad to see you're awake." The doctor said. And Zabby's heart froze.

The last person who knew her as Elizabeth Johnson was George Travers, the spoiled, and only son of Quentin Travers. She couldn't control the shiver that ran up her spine. The Great Bastard had the power to scare her even two years after his death.

Travers, the younger, had trained two Potentials who hadn't been Called. That had made him furious, since George had really wanted to go down in History as one of the Greatest Watchers ever. On the day Zabby's mother had told him to get lost, Travers had read a prophecy about a great Slayer who would fight the Gods. Zabby never knew what the prophecy actually said, since Travers only mentioned it once in passing, but she suspected that the prediction had referred to Buffy and Glory. But for some reason Travers became convinced that Zabby was the Slayer mentioned in the prophecy.

Of course George Travers had to be the one who trained the Slayer powerful enough to take on Gods. And no pathetic mother would stand in his way. He hired mercenaries to take Zabby from her school, and had set out to train her. Had he been anyone but the Head Watcher's son, he would have been fired just for the mercenaries, who were much more high profile than the Council could stand. His 'methods of training' would also not have been acceptable.

But she hadn't seen George Travers in almost eight years, and no one, not even Xander, knew that she had been born Elizabeth Johnson, since she hadn't used her real last name, since the time she ran away.

Which brought about the question of how these people knew her name. She shut her eyes and pretended that the pain was getting to her, in an effort to buy herself some time to think. Thinking quickly she decided that the confused and sick child act was still her best bet for figuring out just what the hell was going on. And she could always ignore the 'Miss Johnson' part of the question for now. There had to be advantages to being a drugged, underweight, kid, after all.

"You're not Bernie." She told the doctor instead.

"No, I'm not. My name is Doctor Frasier. Who's Bernie?"

"My doctor." Of course she would never dare call Doctor Bernard Sherman, Bernie, but these people didn't need to know that. Doctor Sherman was one of these distinguished silver haired doctors, whom you could never imagine yourself calling anything but Doctor, not even in the privacy of your own head. But she had heard enough of Xander's stories about the Initiative, to realize that if these guys, or their superiors, got a hold of her hospital records, while she was hurt, and isolated from Xander, with no idea how to get home, and even less knowledge about how she got here. And she had absolutely no desire to help these guys tie a noose around her neck by telling them her Doctor's last name and making it easier for them to get a hold of her medical records.

"Where am I? Where's Bernie?" Even to her own ears she sounded hysterical, so Zabby gave herself a mental pat on the back. Hysteria was only to be expected from a sick and drugged child.

"It's all right, you're safe. Nobody is going to hurt you." Doctor Frasier tried to soothe her. Zabby did notice that the woman ignored her questions.

"What happened? Where am I?" She let her voice take on an even more hysterical pitch.

"You're in a hospital. You were badly injured." Doctor Frasier said using her soothing voice again. Zabby had to bite her tongue to keep herself from answering the Doc with a 'why thank you Dr. Obvious.'

"How?" she asked instead. This time she didn't have to fake the quiver in her voice, though thankfully the two people in the room seemed to attribute the unsteadiness to fear instead of anticipation.

"There was an accident." The woman whose name should have been Dr. Evasive told her.

"A car crash? O god! I don't remember." Zabby knew that it couldn't have been car crash since her injuries weren't consistent with that kind of accident, but the average Jane Doe would not be expected to know that kind of thing. And the Doctor's answer to her assumption could be quite telling.

"That's not surprising. But don't worry your memory will come back in time." The doctor gave her a smile, apparently trying to make her feel better. "Now how are you feeling?"

"Everything hurts." Zabby answered allowing her voice to shake a little.

The Doc then continued asking her medical questions, which Zabby tried to answer as truthfully as possible, except for a few slight exaggerations about the amount of pain she was in. And while the doctor was conducting a physical exam, Zabby started taking stock of her condition. She was as weak as a kitten, and when the doctor needed her to sit up so that she could listen to Zabby's lungs, Zabby was unable to sit up on her own. Her slayer hearing was also not as sensitive as it normally would be. And she definitely didn't have to lie to the Doc when she told the older woman about the dizziness she was experiencing.

All of this really didn't bode well for her chance of escape. And the worst part was that the Colonel guy, who seemed so concerned about her before was still standing next to the wall, his face perfectly blank. She had really been counting on his sympathy to keep her from harm. But the fact that the doctor misled her about the nature of her injuries, and the blankness on Colonel Jack's face made her suspect that everything wasn't going to be fine.

She forced her mind to relax. Even with all the drugs still in her system, she was too scared to sleep, but if she slipped deep enough into her meditation, she might be able to convince the doctor otherwise. And meditating might allow her to pick up on a solution, that was currently escaping her mind.

She imagined the apartment that she had lived in, before Traver's took her away from her mother. It was the only place where she had always felt safe and protected. She let the sound of pans and pots banging from the kitchen wash over her. To her the sound was as soothing as the sound of waves was to other people. Her mother loved to cook.

Dimly she was aware that the doctor and the colonel were leaving the room, but that wasn't enough to snap her out of the haze she was in.

Colonel O'Neill stepped out into the hall, and then sagged against the wall. Elizabeth had been so confused, so lost, and in so much pain, that it had brought out every parental instinct that he had ever had. And sick children were meant to be comforted, though he had stayed away from her knowing that a hug from a man she had never met before was the last thing she needed. He had tried to keep his face as blank as possible, and let Dr. Frasier do her job, knowing that interfering would probably only scare Elizabeth.

"Is that normal?" he asked the doctor who had followed him out of the room. "You know that she fell asleep like that?"

"Falling asleep was very normal, Colonel. Her waking up at all is what surprises me. With the amount of drugs in her system, I didn't expect her to be coherent for a while."

"But she will be okay? Right?" He hated how desperate his voice sounded but he seemed to be unable to help himself.

"I don't think her condition is quite as bad as we assumed at first, but then internal injuries are usually tricky and it's really too early to give you a definite timeline. Nonetheless, she seems to be healing nicely."

"Thank you."

"Just doing my job, Colonel. Though if I may say, I would recommend that you figure out what happened and what exactly you are planning on telling Miss Johnson about her injuries. I don't like misleading my patients, even if I'm fairly confident that she won't remember this conversation."

With that Janet headed briskly towards her office.

Jack headed in the other direction, intending to fill Carter in on the fact that Elizabeth's Doctor had been a man named Bernie. The Major wasn't in her office, so Jack simply left her a small post-it note on her desk with the information and headed out.

The real problem was that before they could find a believable cover story for her presence here, they needed to know something about Elizabeth's circumstances before. And they were hitting brick walls whenever they tried to find anything about her.

You'd have thought that if a patient vanishes in a flash of light from a recovery ward the whole hospital would have known about it. Instead the hospital seemed to have absolutely no record of Elizabeth Johnson or of a patient who disappeared without any explanation. And as far as Carter had been able to tell, the ward in which Elizabeth had been located had officially been closed for Renovation for months.

All of which made Jack very anxious. He had a kid who had been taken from her school by apparent professional. That kid had been missing for ten years and presumed dead, only to be discovered, drugged out of her mind, in a hospital that had no record of her presence there. Right now all sorts of theories were rushing around in his head, each worse, than the next.

The worst of it was that there just wasn't that much he could do. Their only link was the hospital. Carter was working her magic on the computer, trying to find everything she could on St. Marian's. Daniel and Teal'c were currently in the air on their way to New York. At first Jack had wanted to travel with them, but in the end he decided to stay here with Elizabeth. And besides, what Daniel couldn't charm out of people, Teal'c could intimidate out of them. They didn't really need him. And Elizabeth might just need someone to hold her hand, even if she wasn't conscious and aware of it.

With that thought in mind he headed back to his daughter's room.


End file.
